The Battle at Hoher Goll Station

In the days immediately following the Battle of First Contact, additional battles were waged on the planet Adrilles. Most of these occurred in the volcanic northern hemisphere as units from all armies sought to regroup and establish positions of strength. The Battle at Hoher Goll Station occurred in the morning after the Battle of First Contact. Though the number of combatants was small compared to other fights during the first week of the Adrilles War, the Battle at Hoher Goll Station is significant because of what it reveals of Khorne and Space Wolves tactics during this early stage of the war.

The Jager Corps had been on Adrilles years before the arrival of its enemies. As a result, the well-equipped Jagers had established bases of operations, military outposts, and research facilities in all corners of Adrilles. More than half of these were in the volcanic northern hemisphere where dormant Tyranid presence was largest. This is where Grand Librarian Hoeth and his cadre of Psykers perfected the controlled awakening and psychic engineering of Tyranids.

On the day after the Battle of First Contact, small yet effective groups of Khorne daemons began systematic assaults on Jager Corps research facilities in the volcanic north. Each of the attacked facilities had a series of warp portals which were used to amplify and focus the psychic energy required to develop and control Tyranids. When a facility fell to the Chaos swarm, the daemons would slaughter the soldiers and non-military personnel within but would also collapse the warp portals. Indeed, surviving Jager Corps soldiers reported that the daemons’ primary objective appeared to be the destruction of the portals. The wholesale slaughter was merely a means to that end.

When Space Wolves found Hoher Goll Station, it was a husk. The outlying buildings were smoldering, chaotic fires licking the architectural bones. Bodies littered the ground– Jager Corps troops tasked with defending the station amid the unnatural forms of daemon. Hoher Goll had only one portal, which had collapsed, but the daemons had not moved on after doing so. A horde of Bloodletters were trying to get inside the only remaining standing building.

What had drawn the Wolves to the area was not only smoke on the horizon but also a weak distress beacon. As they got closer, the signal got stronger. A Librarian of the Jager Corps was trapped inside the facility.

The Space Wolves attacked the Khorne position. None of the attacking Space Wolves survived the daemons counter-attack, but a lone Scout had been ordered to stay behind and report back whatever occurred. That report– one of thousands filed during the Adrilles War– reveals the Wolves’ intent was to rescue the Librarian and to bring him before Rune Priests so it could be learned how the Jagers were able to develop and control Tyranids.

Most historians present Arjac Rockfist as possessing only one goal: To eradicate the Jager Corps for their perceived heresy. A handful of historians– and it should be noted each is a controversial figure– claim Arjac Rockfist– perhaps under orders from Leman Russ or even the Emperor directly– sought to understand the Jager Corps experiments.

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About caperaway

I’m a publisher writer of graphic novels and short fiction. Published works include Acts of Violence: An Anthology of Crime Comics, The Grim Collection, Black Salt, and Psychosis.
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